Choosing to See Beauty or Chaos
Our house was an absolute wreck.
Our living room had become a staging area for the six-man crew replacing our carpet. There were carpet rolls. A waist-deep pile of carpet scraps. Rolls of carpet pad. Coolers full of drinks. A radio tuned to a Hispanic station. It was loosely organized chaos.
And right there in the midst of it was a juxtaposition so striking that it stopped me in my tracks.
In the absolute epicenter of all the commotion, my wife was creating the most beautiful Thanksgiving tablespace.
My wife, Brendt, runs a lifestyle brand in the home décor niche called She Gave It A Go. As part of her job, she routinely designs spaces in our home to highlight décor products and to teach others how to make their home a welcoming place. It just so happened that on the day the carpet was to be installed, she had her own installation planned. She had to video herself decorating a table for Thanksgiving.
Our house has an open floor plan. That means that the table she was designing was in the same room as the staging area for the carpet.
If you were looking through the camera that day, you would have seen a tranquil table set before you. The mid-morning light from the window was just right, soft and even. There were tall, slender candles and elegant china. Glass pumpkins added a whimsical touch.
But if you turned your back to the camera, you would have seen a job site. Bustling men carrying massive carpet rolls. The sound of carpet padding being hammered down. Scrap carpet being tossed from the front bedroom into a pile in the living room. The staccato burst of Banda music on the radio. Workers moving past the table to the next room on their checklist.
Same space, two different experiences.
Every day has its challenges. For most of us, each day will have its share of frustrations, busyness, distractions, disappointments, and inconveniences. For some of us, the day's challenges are much more dire. Pain, hunger, depression, and worse. But no matter where we find ourselves, every one of us has a choice: will we choose to intentionally seek out the good in each day? Will we go through our day expecting to encounter one of the many blessings God has tucked into our existence?
It all depends on how we choose to see the world. We can turn our face toward the beauty or the chaos.
The author of Hebrews gives us insight into how Jesus was able to endure the spiritual and physical agony of the cross. Amid such great suffering, Jesus saw through the tunnel of pain to the light of joy (Heb. 12:2). He knew the redemptive power of His work, so He endured. This is not mere positive thinking. This was a deliberate choice, a mindset, to frame extreme heartache in light of the good inherent in the tragedy of the cross. Like everything Jesus did, this is instructive to us, His children.
If we sit back and allow each day to come as it will, we experience the days as they are. Some days will be bad. Some days will be really bad. Most days will be numbingly routine, full of neither the white-hot light of joy nor pain. How refreshing it is to be reminded that we don't have to passively let the days dictate what we take from them.
Every day, we have a choice to seek joy and find blessing. God's steadfast love never ceases, and His mercies are new every morning (Lam 3:22-23). This is true. And so, it is critical that we are a people who bend our lives toward finding the new good that God infuses into each day, regardless of our circumstances.
Our days are like a big room with the chaos of work in one corner and the joy of creation in the other. What a blessing that we get to decide which way we face.
This article originally appeared in the Good For You Newsletter, Vol: 3.
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